October 7, 2012 5:36am EDTOctober 7, 2012 2:27am EDTCincinnati's postseason plans take a hit when Johnny Cueto leaves with back spasms in the first. Game 3 starter Mat Latos helps pick up the slack with strong relief work, setting up a 5-2 victory that gives Cincy a 1-0 series lead.

SAN FRANCISCO—This could have been a disaster, the kind of unexpected problem that could have derailed October expectations and led to another disappointing postseason for the Cincinnati Reds.

There was concern before Johnny Cueto climbed onto the mound at AT&T Park to throw his first pitch Saturday evening. While he warmed up in the bullpen before Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the San Francisco Giants, Cueto knew something was wrong. He felt discomfort in his back; suddenly, the Reds' playoff fortunes were up in the cool and breezy Bay Area air.

The team rushed to put together a contingency plan while still letting Cueto take the ball and hoping for the best. But on his eighth pitch of the first inning, Cueto, the Reds’ unquestioned ace, twisted his torso and recoiled with a look of pain that drenched his face. Manager Dusty Baker and a team trainer sprinted to the mound as if Cueto had been shot, because they knew their playoff goals might be.

After a discussion at the mound, Cueto didn’t even bother trying to throw a pitch to gauge the pain. He knew he was done and walked off the mound before questions were finished being asked. He just shook his head and exited. Baker turned and stared at Cueto’s back as it moved farther and farther away from him toward the first-base dugout, with the team’s championship chances resting upon it.

“When he went out of the game, I was like, ‘Oh, man, we’re done. Why? Why?’” Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips said. “But we went in and said let’s win this for Johnny. It (stinks) to see your ace go down like that, it really does.”

That is exactly what the Reds did—win. They proved Giants ace Matt Cain was not invincible in the postseason, and Mat Latos and the bullpen turned Cueto’s injury into a rallying point. After their 5-2 victory, the Reds held a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series.

Latos was scheduled to pitch Game 3 in Cincinnati, where he has a 3.18 ERA and 1.123 WHIP. Instead, he entered in the third inning Saturday on three days’ rest and blew away the Giants for four innings, allowing one run on a day he was the “break glass in case of emergency” pitcher.

To the uninformed onlooker, Cueto’s pain looked like maybe an oblique injury. That likely would have kept him out for the entire postseason. Speculation also had it as an abdominal injury, or a serious back injury. None of them would be good.

It turned out to be back spasms. For that the Reds and Cueto are thankful. They're serious enough to have kept him from continuing in Game 1, but not so serious that it rules out a return in Game 3 at Great American Ball Park. The Reds won’t know about that until Cueto is re-examined Sunday.

What was known afterward was that Latos, who was considered a selfish recluse while with the San Diego Padres, delivered when he was most needed.

Once Cueto felt that pain during warm-ups, Reds pitching coach Bryan Price explained the situation to Latos and asked if he could give them anything on short rest. Latos did not hesitate.

“If you need me, I’m there,” Latos said.

So when Cueto walked off the mound, Latos jumped up, looked at Price and held up his arms as if to ask, “Am I in?” Price nodded and Latos ducked into the clubhouse, put on his spikes and started his pregame routine as if this was a normal start.

This is the playoffs. This is what the Reds had trained for in the winter and in February and in March. This is what they fought for all summer. This is where they wanted to be in the fall.

No way Latos wasn’t going to take the ball and pitch on guts and adrenaline after having already thrown a bullpen session and worked out Saturday afternoon as if he was going to get two off days before starting Game 3. It didn’t matter because the Reds needed him.

“It was his chance to do exactly what he did, step into a role where we had to have somebody to come in there and give us quality innings,” Price said. “And he did it without reservation.

“You can look at it two ways. You can make an excuse on why you’re going to fail or you can give yourself a reason why you’re going to succeed. There was no hesitation by Matty. We gave him the ball, he took it and he did a great job.”

He had help. When Cueto came out, Baker looked at the bench and motioned toward his cheeks and chin, where a full beard would be.

“I knew it was me because there’s no other idiot in there with a full beard,” right-hander Sam LeCure said. He gave the Reds 1 2/3 shutout innings and escaped a self-induced bases-loaded jam in the second.

When that inning was over, Dusty put his arm around LeCure in the dugout and had a look on his face that said something like, “Thanks for saving us there, Sam.”

That paved the way for Latos, properly warmed up, to devour the Giants the way he has every other team he’s faced in the second half of the regular season. His lone mistake of the night was a hanging slider that Buster Posey hit over the left-field wall.

Cueto’s injury could have seriously altered the balance in this series. If the Reds or Latos weren’t ready to deal with Cueto exiting after one-third of an inning, and with the Reds not having a home game until the third meeting, the complexion of the series would have changed.

If Latos or the bullpen would have imploded and the Giants won, the Reds would have gone from World Series favorites for many, to a team just trying to not get swept for the second consecutive NLDS—the Phillies blanked them in 2010.

“He was our saving grace,” Price said. “Without him, not to say it would be a different result, but (Sunday) would be a very different day for us with our bullpen.

“We just felt like, what else are you going to do? We’ve worked too hard to get this opportunity to start thinking that one tough break is going to end our season.”